Drift slowly regained consciousness… and immediately wished he hadn't. When
he opened his eyes all he could see was dimly lit snow bare inches from the end
of his nose. Panic scrabbled at his mind, and he shoved it into a corner while
he tried to figure out what had happened. He was laying pinned face-down, he
couldn't move, his right arm was trapped under him, and his left arm twisted up
and behind him at an angle he knew it wasn't supposed to reach. His entire
lower body was wrenched to the right and down relative to his upper body,
straining his back at the taurform hip. Burning pain radiated from his left
shoulder down his arm, across his back, and down his chest and belly.
Underneath that, his whole body felt like one massive bruise, from the top of
his head, to the tiptoes of his hind legs. The last thing he remembered was…
oh. The avalanche. That explained just about everything.
That did not, however, explain the feeling of something nudging his left
hand somewhere above him. It hurt, and Drift reflexively twitched his hand to
try to get whatever was doing it to stop. Once again, he immediately wished he
hadn't. Whatever it was gave a relieved, excited yip, muffled by the snow, and
starting digging. When blunt digging claws snagged on his arm fur and jerked,
Drift yelled so loudly that he scared away whatever was digging. While the
samoyed ran through every curse word he'd ever heard of, and then invented a
few more just for the occasion, he tried to wriggle and heave his way free of
the snow. /Work now, panic later/ had been one of his father's sayings when
things had turned hectic at the forge, and the memory stood him in good stead
now. The jolts of pain from his shoulder as he struggled inspired him to start
over at the beginning of his blue streak, but the sound of it also brought back
whatever had been digging. Drift heard an unmista
kably canine whine and figured out who it was. Only Cloud Walker and Xavier
had still been in the path of the avalanche when it hit, and Xavier wouldn't
whine. Gripe, yes. Whine, no. "If you're going to dig, Cloud Walker," he
snapped, "then dig /carefully/, dammit. I think my arm's broken."
The digging sound, when it started again, was more tentative and it started
closer to his head, so he gritted his teeth and bore it when the digging still
jostled his arm now and again. The snow felt like rock around him. Only
beneath him did it have some softness left, and that stole some of the pushing
power out of his right arm. It had also certainly saved his life, cushioning
his landing after the long fall from the cliffs above.
The light from above was getting brighter as Cloud Walker got closer, and
Drift tried to push his right arm up his chest through the snow toward it. The
air was starting to get bad around him, and if he could just- yes! Cloud
Walker's claws collided with his own, bringing with them fresh air that Drift
sucked at greedily. "All right, good job," he panted, patting the young dire
wolf's snout. It was all he could reach. "Now let's try and get the rest of
me unburied, okay? Carefully?"
By the time Cloud Walker excavated enough snow that Drift could shake free,
both of them were panting from weariness. Tousling the young wolf's headfur
with his good hand, Drift took some time to look around and get his bearings.
They had somehow survived the fall from the clifftops, just barely overshooting
the line of trees fringing the valley edge. Xavier was nowhere to be seen, and
Drift got no response when he called for the leopard man. They would have to
search for him. Although Cloud Walker's tail swished slightly in gladness that
Drift was free, he trembled with anxiety from the long fall into the unfamiliar
river valley. His ears were lowered and he stayed close to Drift's side,
whimpering quietly to himself. Both of them could hear the pack howling
mournfully on the clifftops, and even dimly pick up a few of the louder shouts
from the Longs. Deliberately pitching his voice with confidence to counter
Cloud Walker's fear, he asked, "How about you howl for
your pack while I get my arm fixed up? That will at least let everybody else
know we're okay, and that we're looking for Xavier." Being given a useful task
seemed to be just the distraction Cloud Walker needed, and he wagged his tail
in approval of the idea before moving off a bit to make his call. The wolf's
ears were still lowered a bit, Drift noticed, but his morale seemed improved.
While Cloud Walker did that, the injured samoyed taur gingerly drew his dagger
from its sheath on his left arm and sliced his vest apart, retying it into a
serviceable sling. Getting his injured arm into it was worthy of a few more
swear words, but he bit them back to avoid alarming his young companion. He
also deliberately avoided looked at the misshapen bumps and bulges of his
shoulder, to avoid alarming himself. At least no bones were sticking out.
His saddlepack looked battered, but intact, although it hurt his wrenched
back to turn to check it. His waterskin was gone, but if he remembered the map
Padraic had drawn, the path he'd have to take to meet up with the Longs at the
wolf pack's new home would never stray far enough from the river that he'd be
likely to need it. Whirlwind hadn't gotten lost, but heaven help him if he
knew how he would wield it with only one arm. That left him with only his
dagger for meaningful defense, a thought that provoked a moment of black humor.
A weapon he'd bought for the express purpose of killing himself if he were
ever trapped in a fire was what he was going to have to rely on when trapped in
snow. Looking up at the canyon walls again, and then up even farther to their
tops, he couldn't believe he'd survived. If Cloud Walker couldn't find Xavier
in the snow, then the leopard would most likely have landed among the nearby
trees. Drift ran the fingers of his right hand throug
h his thick neckruff, hoping that his friend would be in better shape than he
was. This was not going to be an easy task if he wasn't. The problems that
lay ahead threatened to overwhelm him, but he pushed back at them with his
father's words. "Work now, panic later," he said to himself, and then glanced
skyward with some words from his mother. /My Lord Yahshua, I know you said
you'd never give me a challenge beyond my abilities… but there are times that I
wish you didn't trust me so much./
Several minutes later, Drift and Cloud Walker had found Xavier. The black
leopard morph hung doubled over a limb at least ten feet up a leafless birch
tree. He wasn't moving. "Xavier? Xavier, wake up!" Drift called, putting his
forepaws against the trunk and gently shaking it. Cloud Walker barked, but the
leopard didn't respond. Even when Drift walked his forepaws as far up the tree
as he could, Xavier still didn't react, and he was still just out of arm's
reach, though not far enough away that Drift could miss the blood staining the
leopard's head fur from a wound just ahead of his right ear. "Oh, this is
going to be /interesting/," Drift groaned as he climbed back down. Reaching
for his saddlepack, he pulled out a long bundle of rope. "Okay, Cloud Walker,
I'm going to need your help. Here's what we're going to do…"
Half an hour later, Drift and Cloud Walker were ready. The two of them had
woven a rudimentary net (actually more of a crazed spider's web) between the
branches under Xavier, at a height that Drift could reach. The trick of it was
that neither end of the rope was up in the tree. One end was tied around the
trunk of a nearby pine, while Cloud Walker held the other end in his jaws some
distance away. Drift had designed it this way for two reasons: ease of
retrieval once they were finished, and so that, if necessary, Cloud Walker
could slowly lower the net by adding slack to the line. Drift hoped it
wouldn't come to that, because he wasn't sure if the net's weave would hold
together while sliding, but it gave him an extra option if something went
wrong. It wasn't pretty, but with one arm out of commission, the other needed
to maneuver and possibly catch Xavier before the leopard's head hit anything,
and Cloud Walker only able to handle one rope end at a time, it would h
ave to suffice.
"Ready, Walker?" Drift asked.
The young dire wolf looked oddly surprised for a moment, and then braced his
paws and wagged. It had taken several attempts before Drift was able to
explain what was expected of him in terms he could understand, but once he'd
figured it out, he had tackled the problem with characteristic energy and
uncharacteristic focus. Perhaps the avalanche had shaken some of his puppyish
silliness loose.
"All right," Drift said, "let's do this." The samoyed taur reared up,
placed his forepaws against the trunk, and walked them up as high as he could
reach while still keeping his hind paws in a stable position on the ground.
Then, using his good arm, he snapped Whirlwind into staff form and carefully
reached up to prod at Xavier with one end. "Brace yourself, Walker," Drift
said as the leopard started to slide off the branch. "Here he-"
Xavier's eyes fluttered open.
It had been a good plan. The only flaw was that Drift had assumed Xavier
wouldn't wake up in the middle of it and panic. The leopard-man flailed as he
landed in the net, catching Drift squarely on his injured shoulder with a
swinging backhand. Reeling back as pain exploded outward from the impact,
Drift misstepped with his left forefoot. It slid off the side of the trunk,
taking the rest of him with it. Wobbling on his feet and momentarily dazed
from bashing his muzzle on a branch on the way down, Drift looked up to see
that at least part of his plan had worked. In spite of Xavier's thrashing,
Cloud Walker was carefully lowering the net while Drift recovered.
Cradling his aching shoulder, Drift felt his temper boil over. He welcomed
the distraction: it took his mind off of the pain-induced nausea roiling his
stomachs. Throwing up in taur form was not an experience he ever wanted to
repeat. "Dammit, cat!" he shouted, pausing to wipe blood from his nose and
spit more from a bite wound on the inside of his cheek. "Hold still!" The net,
as expected, was starting to come apart, and Drift put his hand on the
leopard's sagging backside to keep him from falling out.
Xavier stopped thrashing around and seemed to settle for grumbling
incoherently as he was lowered to the ground. This made Drift nervous. How
badly was his friend injured? Somewhere during the fall, Xavier's pack had
ripped open, and with only the supplies in Drift's saddlepack, Drift wasn't
sure they had enough food to wait for the Longs if Xavier couldn't be moved.
The samoyedtaur pulled his sleeping blanket from his pack and kicked it open on
the snow with a forepaw, so at least Xavier would have a dry surface to lie on.
While he untangled the leopard from the net and moved him to the opened
blanket, he asked Cloud Walker to search for any items in the snow with
Xavier's scent. With the young wolf occupied and distracted, Drift settled his
taur half down in the snow next to the blanket and tried to remember anything
he'd been taught about head injuries. He knew there wasn't much, but anything
was better than sitting around trying not to panic. /Work now, panic l
ater/, he thought, but how could he work if he couldn't think of what to do?
Finally, he remembered something from basic patrol training, a rhyme one of
the standing army's battle healers had drilled into them regarding head
impacts. "Matching eyes, rest and rise. They don't match, healer's latch," he
reminded himself aloud. Taking a deep breath to settle his nerves, Drift blew
it out in a long sigh. "Okay. Please don't let them not match," he prayed as
he reached for the leopard's face…
"Bad grammar."
Drift nearly jumped out of his fur when Xavier's hand seized his wrist,
stopping him before he could lift the leopard's eyelids.
"Not supposed to use not over an' over in a sentence," Xavier mumbled, his
voice slurred. "S'not… not right. Not right…" He trailed off into
incoherency, his hand relaxing and dropping to the ground again.
Drift checked the leopard's eyes: they matched, and Drift heaved a sigh of
relief. Still he wanted to get his friend to the Longs as soon as he could, if
he could just figure out a way to move him safely. /What would Wolfram or
Misha do in a situation like this/? he asked himself. After a moment, the
answer came to him and he started gently patting down Xavier's chest and sides,
checking for broken-
Xavier swatted him. "Stoppit. That tickles."
Drift had to take several long breaths before he regained enough control to
reply. He leaned down close, so close that his breath ruffled Xavier's short
fur and growled a low rumble into the leopard's ear. "Xavier, I know you're
injured and not right in the head right now," he said, "but I swear to high
holy heaven that if you hit me in the shoulder even /one/ more time, I'm going
to /snap your arm off and beat you with it/!"
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